The present invention relates to devices for draining and disposing of spent beverage brewing substances.
Beverage brewing devices are commonly used in high volume applications such as restaurants, catering organizations and other high volume food production institutions. A typical beverage brewing apparatus has a body which positions a funnel below a heated water source. The funnel contains a beverage brewing substance which is infused with heated water dispensed into the funnel to produce a brewed beverage. A brewed beverage is drained from the funnel into a serving decanter positioned underneath the funnel.
Such a beverage brewing device requires that the beverage brewing substance be measured and deposited into the funnel for each batch of beverage produced. Additionally, this activity inherently requires the removal of spent brewing substance after it has been infused with hot water and a brewed beverage produced therefrom. The need to fill the funnel with a beverage brewing substance and remove the spent substance from the funnel is extremely labor intensive and prone to error due to mismeasurement or failure to remove the spent brewing substance from the funnel before producing another batch of brewed beverage.
Recently, beverage brewing devices have been produced which introduce a high degree of automation to the beverage brewing process. Such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,985 to Bunn et al. issued Aug. 8, 1992. The device shown in Bunn et al. includes an automatic brewing substance dispenser for dispensing a predetermined amount of beverage brewing substance into a brewing chamber. The brewing process is automated including automatically controlled brewing, dispensing and chamber cleaning. After the brewing process is complete, the spent brewing substance is expelled from the brewing chamber through a drain conduit into a waste collection container.
A problem arises, however, in handling the spent brewing substance. The volume of brewing substance and waste water requires frequent periodic removal and dumping. To improve the efficiency of the brewing device, it would be desirable to accumulate the spent brewing substance from numerous brewing cycles in order to reduce the amount of manual labor and servicing time required to maintain the brewing device.
Another problem arises with the accumulation of spent brewing substance such that a large proportion of the waste product is water which is retained by the brewing substance itself during the brewing process. Additionally, it is common for brewing devices, such as the one shown in Bunn et al., to dispense waste water used to clean the brewing chamber into a common waste collection hopper. As such, a substantial quantity of water must be dealt with in dispensing of the spent brewing substance. Attendant with the accumulation of the spent brewing substance and water is the problem of the weight of the container used to collect such waste products. Not all employees servicing the beverage brewing device are capable of lifting large quantities of spent beverage brewing slurry. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a small waste removal container which drains off the liquid portion of the waste materials and permits the accumulation of several brew cycles worth of spent brewing substance.
One possible solution to the waste material problem that may have been tried is to simply drain all the combined spent brewing substance and waste water, the slurry, down a common drain. However, this solution may not be feasible in some areas which restrict the amount of material which can be flushed down a waste sewer along with waste liquids. Further, the plumbing requirements to flush substantial quantities of solid or particulate materials may not be available or may be cost prohibitive since they are substantially greater than those for merely draining water and other liquids.
Another problem that arises with the accumulation of spent brewing substances in brewing devices is that the spent brewing substance creates a great deal of steam and moisture which, if allowed to travel into the brewing device, may create many problems. For example, when spent brewing substances are disposed in a brewing basket, the steam rises off of the substance as the substance cools in the waste collection tray. Since the trays are positioned at the bottom of the brewing devices, the steam rising off of the spent brewing substance rises through the brewing device. While the brewing chamber is designed to infuse substances with heated water, it is difficult to protect the internal components of the brewing device from the detrimental affects of the rising steam. When the brewing device includes a brewing substance dispenser the steam may have an extremely detrimental affect on the brewing substance retained in the substance dispenser. For example, if ground coffee is retained in the substance dispenser, the steam may cause the ground coffee to cake and therefore not be properly dispensed into the brewing chamber.
Waste disposal devices such as the one shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,915 to Ford, issued Sep. 21, 1993 solves many of these problems. In extremely high quantity applications, it may be desirable to quickly remove the waste liquid from the spent beverage brewing slurry in order to accommodate the higher through put or volume of waste slurry. In this regard, the device as shown in Ford '915 performs extremely well when the slurry is allowed to drain by gravity through a filter material. However, in high volume applications, this device may be delay the brewing process since a full tray signal may override continued brewing until the liquid portion of the slurry is drained.
As such, it is desirable to provide a waste disposal device which can be coupled to a beverage brewing device to receive and retain large quantities of spent beverage brewing substances and waste water and to expeditiously drain the liquid portion therefrom. Further, it is desirable to provide a disposal device which can be quickly and easily emptied so as not to slow down a large volume beverage brewing process.